Forger chapter 1-3, Jude Alquinto [read the beginning after the end novel .TXT] 📗

to hear a disheartening past. “A sting to the chest, isn’t it?” he said with much compassion, “needing to use that knife of yours.”

“I feel less pain if I convince myself they deserved it.”

“The bastards had it coming.”

~~~

The night was cold and dark. Stars were seen past the rotten branches above their heads. They needed not the smallest effort to hear the snapping of twigs and rustling of leaves beneath their feet.

The trees dwindled in numbers upon every step of their walk. Bushes and paths began to greet them as they made it out of the Whisperer’s Den and neared the walls of Tardel.

The moonlight and absence of perforated shadows finally revealed Arza’s whole image. A green kirtle dress covered her tender white flesh—sleeves reached past her wrists. At the sight of her beauty, Axev’s wits left him for dead.

“Moon… Round...” he looked at her, “pretty.”

”Quick… Me… Bloody… Scared.”

That moment, he wanted to jab his mouth upon her thin lips and demand it as the reward for saving her. He craved to stroke the length of her hair. If she resisted, he’d bind her with chains and feel her from the waist up. He was a forger and she but a girl; not a single soul would hear them for a mile.

Only a fool would not be tempted by Arza’s beauty.

As their chat went on, they have arrived at the only road beaming clear through the treacherous woods. The Guide, as common folk called it. It was wide enough for a half a dozen carts to pass by running side by side. The Guide was the safest route through the Den; even the blind would need skill to get lost.

Axev’s swords repositioned themselves; a pair to the left and another to the right.

“By any chance, sir, are you really not a knight?” she turned to walk backwards, facing Axev.

“You seem to have very poor eyes.”

“I’ve seen how well you handled swords,” she said, “how sure you were with every swing. Your skills alone can earn you a title. Forge knight, if I’m to judge.”

“Look at my clothes,” he replied, “and tell me if a knight would permit himself be clad in these rags?”

“Most knights have blood on their hands.” She added, “and hair… and armour… and face. Worse than rags, don’t you think?”

“Knights wear their enemy’s blood like jewellery in battle. Rags, however, is a different matter entirely.”

“Can’t argue with that,” she said. Walking backwards, she nearly tripped over a rock to which she yelped, then laughed. “But the forge knights are somewhat decent.”

“Yes, because they could kill you much quicker from a good range, those bloodthirsty sods.”

“And they earn about 150 verens for every month of service,” she added, “common knights don’t have that, you know.”

“150?” An appealing amount to any man who makes a living from hunting. His eyes glowed. Hearing such an overwhelming amount of money, he had to speak it again. 150, an amount enough to buy a sack of bread, five personal mercenaries for a year, and a hundred whores. He spoke with an air of epiphany, “I’m gonna be a rich man… so bloody rich, my chickens would wear robes and mg pigs would shit on featherbeds.”

“That’s a long climb, I tell you.”

“A man can dream.”

~~~

They made it before the gates of Tardel. A massive barrier of steel spanning as wide as the Guide and ten yards high. The gate, a disorderly weave of metal bars fixed into place by some group of, as revealed by their product, guesswork blacksmiths. A preposterously large gate which splits in half when the contraptions on its sides are operated by a five men each.

Arza let out a breath of relief as she was near her home, only a colossal gate blocking her way… and three guards who won’t let them in.

“Why?!” she asked, “we live here! I speak the truth!”

“Aye, every knave’s honest when you ask ‘em,” said one of them. “Now turn ‘round and pillage some other hovel.”

“You can pay us some coins and we’ll let you in… you look harmless enough,” said another, “and we won’t yap about you two sneakin’ in here in the dead of night.”

Axev held the bars of the gate and did his best to persuade the guards, “I pass by here with wolf pelts every other night… you know we live here.”

“Where’s the pelts, then?”

Axev was lost for words.

So if I don’t have pelts, my house flies somewhere else?

“You’re not much of a thinking man, are you?” Axev asked. Vexation made a puppet out of his mouth.

The guard phased his arms through the gate and hauled on Axev’s clothes, forcing him against the bars. “Look here, you twig, it’s night and three of us is tired,” he gestured his head to his peers, “either you give us sumthin’ shiny, or find a bog in the den to spend the night in with your wife.” He nodded to the woods.

Wife. That, I wouldn’t mind her being.

“Can I talk to my wife?” Axev smiled wryly as he went along. Any correction from someone of lower status was likely to foul the guard’s already sour mood. “I always let her decide.”

The guard let go, unable to care any less.

Axev turned to Arza who felt so weary that she could not be bothered by the word wife. “Oi wife, got any coins there?” while secretly moulding coins of his own inside his fist.

“If it means getting this over with, it’s yours,” she replied, “how much?”

“No need for that, I was just asking,” he grumbled, enough to be heard by Arza but not the guard. As he sharply turned back to the gate, he pulled out six coins from his empty pockets, a masterful imitation to the real thing.

“Coins for our safe passage,” he handed the fat-lipped keeper silver coins—perfect with all the expected imperfections.

Upon taking it, the gate keeper stepped back, “ah hell, I just remembered,” a vile smug crept to his lips, “see that house there?” He pointed to a manor. Gable roofed with a chimney and glass windows which meant it was a rich man’s. “That’s Sir Meils’ house… a forge knight. And he’s asleep now. Know what that means?”

“Honestly, I don’t give a damn unless he can open this gate,” said Axev in the calmest way he could, slowly losing his patience, “we paid. Now open this gate,” gritting his teeth, he pushed out one last word, “please.”

“That there’s the problem,” the keeper said with his fat-lipped smug, “we move the damn thing an inch, it shrieks like a hundred pigs. If it does, he wakes up. He wakes up, we’re dead,” the keeper turned his back on them, flipping a coin then catching it, “good luck with the bog though… or you can dig your way under. We won’t mind. You paid anyway.”

As the keeper walked away, Axev was presented with a number of choices. He could break a portion of the gate which would have him arrested. Or haul the gate keeper with chains which would also have him arrested. With enough focus, he can try morphing the coins he made earlier into spikes in the guard’s pocket which yields worse results. Or he could wait the morning with Arza.

After a minute of careful weighing of choices, he grabbed a rock and started digging—discarding any thought of dignity. Arza, after decapitating the guard a few times in her head for a while, made to dig as well.

“Just a while ago, you had floating swords!” she whispered her yell as rock scraped to soil.

“If I make a shovel, they’d deduce the coins were fake,” he answered, “which pretty much gets us both hanged for fraud since we’re together. This is better. Soon enough, we’ll get past this disproportionate shit of a gate… by which time, the coins will vanish from his pockets.”

“Vanish? Metal doesn’t just vanish.”

 “A forger’s piece isn’t eternal, you see.”

They dug at lengths until their arms were cursing the weight of the rocks and the stubborn soil. Halfway in their digging, Axev took Arza’s dagger to soften the soil before clawing it off. A part of him wanted it through the thieving guard’s nape.

The guard, with his other two companions, watched them with fondness—a quaint show for a dull evening watch duty.

Soon enough, they were able to creep under the three-yard tunnel they made.

“Oy,” called a guard as Axev and Arza were wiping their sweats and replacing it with dirt, “fill it back in. Don’t want no outsiders crawlin’ in now, don’t we?”

Axev did as he was told lest he gave the guards a reason to remember his face. It often pays to be a blank face, anonymous, especially to guards bored to death and are looking for someone to pick on.

~~~

“Why didn’t we try the other gates? The smaller ones,” queried Arza as they walked in the dark streets.

“Because the monkeys over there are just as ugly as those three we went by. And it’s bloody far and we’re tired.” He let out a monstrous yawn, “this is as far as I take you.”

They stopped at a separating road fogged by the drones of cicadas and adorned by waning lamplights.

“You have my eternal gratitude, sir.”

“I’m not… a knight,” the words squeezed past his teeth.

“I’m going right,” said Arza.

“Left,” he answered, gesturing his hand for a farewell as he turned.

Surrounded by peasant houses with shut windows, doused torches, and serfs who snored over tables and benches, they took their separate ways. As they were growing farther and farther apart, Axev felt the blackness of the night crawling on his spine. He heard a rustle from a corner not so far. Like a hammer falling out of place. Not a cat since it was quick and soft. Not the wind since it was careful.

He turned and made for Arza’s side.

“Oh my beloved wife, wait for me,” he sang as he jogged. When he got closer, his voice melted into a whisper. Not wanting to startle her with uncertain news, the words there’s someone in the shadows had to be refurbished.

“I doubt you’d survive a walk this late,” Axev was never good with sweetening news which tasted like dung.

“I’m armed. There’s nothing to worry about,” she said, “you go home and have your rest now. We’re not in the woods anymore.”

“Aye we’re not. There’s more knaves here.”

“I’m not afraid,” she stopped and looked Axev in the eye. There was certainty in the way she held her composure, “the creature had me by surprise. These boys would not.”

     The forger passed a hand over his face then took a deep galled breath, “if you want to be raped that much, then ask me instead,” he sounded as if giving a practical suggestion, “that way, you can be sure you’re still alive after.”

Arza took a slow breath then released it in a puff, “fine then.”

“Fine what?” he asked, confused, brows knitted, “rape you?”

“Walk, idiot.”

She went on with the forger as her escort again. After passing the length of the same tedious houses, they arrived at the front of a manor. A house standing a bit higher on a heap of land. The moon gleamed on its stone walls and widows of glass. Atop its three floors were little battlements ready for a vicous turn of events.

“You’re the daughter Lord Faith?” Axev asked, his jaws loose from its hinges and eyes steady at the manor.

“Actually, there’s two. I’m the younger. Is it so shocking?” Seeing her companion gaping like a fool was enough an answer.

“A bit,” he said, not taking off his eyes from the house, “I expected something like this from how you spoke.”

“About you being a knight… I can ask my father to have it arranged. You did save me.”

“No need for that. I think I’ve seen enough red during my childhood,” he said curtly, dismissing her offer, “now get inside and let’s get on with our lives. You must be cold.”

“You’re going alone? Take my knife at least.”

“I have two dozen,” he showed his hand with pellets